And the Oscar for most loopholes goes to… the Academy’s own diversity requirements.
On Sunday, the 96th Academy Awards broadcast on ABC will mark a new, woke chapter in Oscars history. For the first time, the ten best picture nominees all had to meet a complex set of DEI rules that spell out quotas for race, gender, and sexuality. But even a casual glance at this year’s nominees shows that no on-screen diversity is actually required.
In fact, no behind-the-camera diversity is required either. A movie’s entire cast and crew can be all white, heterosexual men and it could still qualify as “diverse.”
Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel couldn’t have come up with a better joke.
How is this possible? Loopholes galore.
When the Academy announced the new quotas four years ago — 2024 is the first year they are taking effect — leaders tooted their own horn, calling it “a catalyst for long-lasting, essential change in our industry.”
The reality is significantly less epochal. Like so much of Hollywood, it is mostly an illusion. The Academy’s DEI mandates are broken down into four sections — (A) On-screen diversity (i.e., cast and story); (B) Behind-the-camera diversity (i,e., crew); (C) Industry access (i.e., studio provides internships and training for women and minorities); and (D) Audience development (i.e., women and minorities in executive roles in studio marketing, PR, and distribution).
Under the Academy’s rules, a movie only has to meet two of the four requirements to be eligible for best picture consideration. That means a movie can skip A and B if it fulfills C and D. If a studio employs an army of minority interns and some of its marketing executives are also minorities, then any movie the studio puts out is automatically “diverse” under Academy rules.
In another loophole, the Academy considers women of any color to be a minority. As a result, a movie can fulfill A,B, C, and D using white women and still qualify as “diverse.”
The same loophole applies for LGBTQ+ people.
The Academy’s quotas appear designed to give studios ample room to fudge the results. The rules are both absurdly specific and absurdly broad. In the end, almost any movie could theoretically qualify as “diverse.”
This explains why Oppenheimer is eligible for best picture. Christopher Nolan’s three-hour biopic of J. Robert Oppenheimer is wall-t0-wall straight white males — the antithesis of the woke left’s definition of “diverse” — thus failing category A. The only non-white-male people are Emily Blunt and Florence Pugh, whose roles are so small they feel like glorified cameos.
Oppenheimer fulfills B thanks to white women serving as editor, costumer designer, production designer, and set decorator.
Universal — the studio behind Oppenheimer — can easily fulfill C and D, thus completing the movie’s diversity requirements.
It would be the biggest irony that if on the Oscars’ first year celebrating its DEI mandates, Oppenheimer wins best picture.
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